Relationship of the Extent of Antarctic and Arctic Ice with Temperature Changes, 1979–2020

Abstract

Quantitative estimates of the relationship between interannual variations in the extent of Antarctic and Arctic sea ice and changes in the surface air temperature in the Northern and Southern hemispheres are obtained using satellite, ground-based, and reanalysis data for the past four decades (1980–2019). It is shown that the previously noted general increase in the extent of Antarctic sea ice observed until recent years from satellite data (available only since the late 1970s) over the background global warming and a rapid decrease in the extent of Arctic sea ice is associated with a regional decrease in the surface temperature at Antarctic latitudes from the end of the 1970s. This is a result of regional manifestation of natural climate variations with periods of up to several decades against the background of global secular warming with a relatively weak temperature trend over the ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. Since 2016, a sharp decrease in the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the Southern Ocean has been observed. The results of the correlation and cross-wavelet analysis indicate significant coherence and negative correlation with the surface temperature of the extent of sea ice in recent decades, not only in the Arctic, but also in the Antarctic.

Different climatic effects of the Arctic and Antarctic ice covers on land surface temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: application of Liang-Kleeman information flow method and CAM4.0

“…The actual observation results also confirmed this. The satellite, groundbased, and reanalysis data over the past 40 years show that since the end of the 1970s, with the rapid decrease of Arctic sea ice, the temperature in the Southern Hemisphere has decreased regionally, but after 2016, the situation was reversed, and the Antarctic sea ice began to decrease sharply (Mokhov and Parfenova, 2021). Antarctic sea ice was found to have a good connection with the atmospheric circulation in the northern hemisphere (Kwok and Comiso, 2002;Martinson and Douglas, 2003).…”

Future projections of wind energy potentials in the arctic for the 21st century under the RCP8.5 scenario from regional climate models (Arctic-CORDEX)

“…The Arctic warming in recent decades has proceeded at approximate twice the rate of the global mean temperature increaselocally more than four times the global rate -and is accompanied by the unprecedented during the instrumental period reduction of sea ice extent (Jansen et al, 2020;Rantanen et al, 2022). Retreating sea ice amplifies warming, which in turn feeds back to further enhanced changes in the Arctic Ocean (Vihma, 2014;Semenov and Latif, 2015;Mokhov and Parfenova, 2021). Retreating sea ice already allows better access by sea to the Arctic Ocean, which can be seen for marine shipping along the Northern Sea Route (Khon et al, 2017;Kibanova et al, 2018;Parfenova et al, 2021), may ease the extraction of oil and natural gas resources and increase the opportunities for renewable energy production in the Arctic off-shore zones (Pryor et al, 2020).…”